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Playing for both teams

By
EIC
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0

 

By Darren Sharp
Photos by Mark Britch

The struggle of queer male athletes

OTTAWA (CUP) — As I wait for my interview to begin, I consider how awkward this conversation will probably be. I don’t know much about John*: I know that he played football for a Canadian university team, I know that he’s bisexual, and I know that he’s told just a select few about his attraction to other men. Only through a couple of twists of fate did I find out about him and convince him to agree to an interview. In my experience, closeted individuals are very guarded and evasive when it comes to discussing their sexuality, so I expect the next half hour to be like pulling teeth.

Around 1:30 p.m., John strolls into the building. At first glance, he’s your typical jock: a brick house of a man, gym bag hanging off one shoulder. There are people littered around, but no one knows what he’s here to discuss. I usher him into my office and shut the door for maximum privacy. As we sit down, I notice that the timid, sheepish guy I expected to talk to is nowhere to be found. Instead, John has a million dollar smile plastered on his face and an eagerness to get the interview started.

“I’m very comfortable with my personality and my sexuality,” he would tell me later. “No subject is taboo to me.”

The final frontier

Most gay men can pinpoint the exact moment when they realized that they were attracted to other men. Even though his bisexuality was a recent revelation, John’s memory is a bit foggy.

“I don’t even know how it started,” he says. “One day I kind of wanted to try sex with the same sex.”

John’s laid-back attitude toward his sexuality baffles me, especially given his position as an athlete. I expected to hear tortured stories about not being able to sleep at night because he was so consumed by fear and shame; instead, my interviewee acts as though it’s the least important thing on his mind.

“I’m new at this too, but slowly I’m telling more people,” he says. “I think that at some point I’ll have to tell everybody. It’s not like a, ‘Hey, I’m bi!’ It’s more like, ‘Yeah, I’m bi. Sure, let’s talk about it.’ ”

His comfort level raises the question: if it’s such a non-issue, why isn’t he completely out of the closet? He has very legitimate personal reasons but very few of them have to do with being a football player.

Unfortunately, not all athletes are able to feel as comfortable as John does. Until just over a month ago, Jamie Kuntz was a bruising linebacker at the North Dakota State College of Science. Over Labor Day weekend, Kuntz was caught kissing his boyfriend in the press box at one of his team’s games. He was swiftly removed from the squad after the incident. School officials maintain that Kuntz’s dismissal had nothing to do with his sexuality; he was supposed to be filming the game, which he failed to do, and afterward he lied about the events that occurred. Kuntz, however, is convinced they’re not telling the whole truth.

“In my opinion, I think my sexuality had 100 per cent to do with the school’s decision,” he said.

Unlike John, Kuntz’s story is what you might expect to hear from a once-closeted gay athlete. He can recount times where he was made to feel very uncomfortable on the field.

“My decision [to not come out earlier] was made because of actions by the coaches and players,” he said. “I would hear gay jokes everywhere I turned. One of the players that I got along best with told me, ‘My uncle is gay and I don’t like him for it.’ One of the coaches would take time out of practice to make fun of a player for how he stood with his hands on his hips, and talk in a girly voice mimicking his name.”

With North American society sprinting toward equality for the LGBT community, sports culture has moved at more of a crawl. Locker rooms are one of the last places where homophobia occurs largely unchallenged. This is nothing new: sport is almost always one of the final dams to break when equality is rushing through the rest of society. One needs only to look at how long it took for sports to move past the race barrier to see that it’s often the final frontier for social change.

Eric Anderson is a professor from the University of Winchester in the U.K. where he’s done extensive research on homosexuality in university sport. He believes that sport adjusts so slowly because all of the power is concentrated in one place.

“Sport is what I call a ‘near-total institution.’ A total institution, like a prison or the military, is one that controls every move one makes, all day long,” he said. “Sport is similar. In order to excel up the rapidly decreasing opportunity structure, you must not only be a good athlete, but your mentality must conform to the orders of the lead: the coach. Thus, the nature of competitive team sports is that one learns not to be a team player, but to be complicit to the authority of an individual who is normally given far too much power.”

The problem is that homosexuality doesn’t fit into the small box that the sport institution tries to slot each athlete into. The pressure to conform to what an athlete is supposed to be — strong, fearless, masculine — remains very present.

The masculine ideal

When I ask John about athletes he looks up to, he lights up like a Christmas tree.

“My role model was Jack Lambert,” he says, smile at full wattage. “Jack Lambert was probably the meanest motherfucker out there. He had four teeth in his mouth, a big moustache, a snarl the whole day on his face. This guy was just mean! He would hit everybody. He was the tough guy.”

Like many athletes, John clearly values certain traits that are emphasized by sport culture: Power, toughness, and raw masculinity.

“I have to be fast, I have to be strong,” he says. “It makes your job a lot easier if the guy is scared shitless of you. For most people, there is a big pressure to be that alpha male. Everybody wants to be number one. And number one is the strongest guy; number one is the toughest guy.”

In 2011, Anderson published a study called Updating the Outcome: Gay Athletes, Straight Teams, and Coming Out in Educationally Based Sport Teams, in which he interviewed gay university and high school athletes about their experiences with sport and sexuality.

“Sports associate boys and men with masculine dominance by constructing their identities and sculpting their bodies to align with hegemonic perspectives of masculinist embodiment and expression,” he wrote in the article. “Boys in competitive team sports are therefore constructed to exhibit, value, and reproduce traditional notions of masculinity.”

Bryan Fautley, a former volleyball player at Queen’s University who struggled with reconciling his homosexuality with his sport, knows the pressure to fit into the stereotypical “manly” mold all too well.

“I definitely agree that sport is a hyper-masculine institution,” he said. “It’s been labeled that you require a certain level of masculinity to be able to be an athlete, and then as an athlete you’re awarded the social perception of masculinity, as well. So it kind of feeds into its own system.”

Fautley knew he was gay from the age of 16, but was hesitant to come out to his teammates at Queen’s. This made real friendships with them nearly impossible.

“My relationship with the volleyball team beforehand was I’d go to practice like it was a job,” he said. “I wouldn’t really speak to anybody, had no desire to hang out with the guys after practice. On the weekends, I’d avoid them at all costs. We didn’t have any type of friendship beyond practice or games.”

In his third year, a miserable Fautley came out to his coach, who had noticed that something was wrong. However, even with the support of his coach, the pressure became so intolerable that at the end of the season, after a year of helping propel Queen’s to a national championship appearance, he quit the team altogether.

Fautley’s concerned coach asked if she could tell the team the truth about why he was leaving. He told her that she could do whatever she wanted, as he didn’t plan on ever speaking to his teammates again. However, Fautley was blown away by what happened once his team discovered the real reasons he was cutting his athletic career short.

“Every single guy was apologetic for what they did to put me in the position that they did,” he said. “The conversation was more focused on how happy they were for me that I could feel comfortable enough at this point in my life that they got to find out.”

His relationship with the team repaired, Fautley returned to play for Queen’s over his final years at the school. Unknowingly, he had paved the way for other athletes who don’t fit perfectly into the stereotypical masculine mold.

“We had a rookie on the team in my fourth year that was gay,” he said. “He had a great relationship with the guys. It was very open. He’s not someone that would ever shy away from his sexuality. He was really great to have on the team because he brought a totally different dynamic and perspective to a lot of guys on the team because he wasn’t the most traditional athlete in terms of the hyper-masculine and the aggressive attitude. He was definitely more of a feminine guy, and the guys had a lot of fun with it.”

In the conclusion of Updating the Outcome, Anderson notes the changing attitudes of athletes toward homosexuality and masculinity, indicating that the positive experience Fautley witnessed with the gay rookie may be becoming the norm. Based on the men in the study, Anderson confirmed that homophobia was becoming less and less of a defining feature of masculinity in athletes.

Other colourful words

If the indestructible masculine ideal that sport perpetuates is slowly being chipped away, then what of homophobic speech on the field? When I bring up locker room talk to John, he gives a fairly typical locker room answer.

“We call each other everything that goes through our heads,” he says. “We’ll call each other ‘homos’ just like we’ll call each other ‘jerk-offs’ and ‘assholes’ and whatever. I think that we give each other vulgar nicknames more than we actually say our names. It’s such a different atmosphere.”

Calling someone a “fag” during a game is often thought of as inevitability — just boys being boys.

“It’s never going to go away,” says John. “It’s a part of the culture. If I’d come out, I don’t think it would change any of the comments.”

Scott Heggart, a University of Ottawa student and former high school hockey goalie, is trying to change that attitude. Heggart works with You Can Play, an organization that is trying to provide athletes of all sexual orientations with respect and safety.

When Heggart himself came out in high school, his team’s reaction was extremely positive.

“I got a bunch of text messages and messages on Facebook from both current and old teammates,” he said. “Basically, the overwhelming message was, ‘Scott, I’m proud of you, it took a lot of courage, it doesn’t change anything.’ ”

Having witnessed first-hand the denigrating comments that get thrown around the rink, Heggart has a unique perspective with which to share the You Can Play message.

“We’re not asking you to turn locker rooms into this kumbaya, love everybody place,” he said. “We’re just trying to get people to take out that little bit of language. Some of [my teammates] that were going on these rants about how much of a ‘homo’ the ref was, these were the people who sent me messages on Facebook about how they admired my courage and they supported me.”

He believes that athletes often don’t think about how their words can affect those around them.

“A lot of the time it’s disconnect. Does that justify what the people are saying? No,” he said. “Because at the same time, expressing homophobia, whether or not it’s subconscious, is still very, very damaging to people who are in the closet, and for people who may not understand that it’s just subconscious.”

The only conclusion

As our surprisingly forthcoming interview starts winding down, I ask John if he has any advice for a gay high school athlete who is considering whether or not they want to continue playing their sport in university. He pauses thoughtfully before responding.

“There’s going to be a lot of pressure coming up,” he says calmly. “Find a way to make peace with it, and maybe tell somebody or deal with it in some kind of way to relieve some of the pressure that you’re going to put on top of a bigger pressure. There’s going to be a pressure in school, pressure in friends, pressure in [sports], pressure in having a life, for fuck’s sake.

“I would [come out] when you’re comfortable — it might take a month, it might take three years — but definitely find a way to do it. I think it’d be better.”

When the interview ends, we shake hands, and John walks out as confidently as he walked in. After the door closes, I stay sitting down, stunned. How has a strapping, ferocious football player who is also bisexual been able to reconcile those two aspects of himself amid the immense pressure that sport places on him to be a certain type of man?

The only conclusion I could come to — and it’s a conclusion that John, Eric Anderson, Bryan Fautley, and Scott Heggart have echoed — is that the homophobic culture of sport, especially university sport, is changing. Like all social movements in the athletic world, the change is slow and delayed, but it’s happening. And that’s something we should all be cheering for.

 *Names have been changed

The TSSU and you

By
EIC
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0

 

By Mohamed Sheriffdeen

Photos by Mark Burnham

 A TSSU member’s view of the labor disagreement between SFU and the TSSU

If you believe in capitalism, then the images of Wall Street and business owners as greedy fat cats who have it in for the working-man are       unfounded. Every successful business runs on elementary economics: it provides a service while minimizing overhead and maximizing profits. True capitalism allows consumers to choose which organization they bestow their business upon. These companies squabble for our money and, other than the quality of the product we receive, we are not owed anything.

The often-forgotten part of this equation is the worker: the employees and skilled labor who allow businesses to function effectively and    efficiently while providing the best possible service. How do we evaluate their worth? Ideally, it would be a wage and system of benefits that are commensurate with their value on the open market, abilities, and performance set against company profitability. However, business is a fluid, dynamic beast, and productivity may change over time as a reflection of the economic climate. This necessitates constant re-negotiation and evaluation of the employer-employee relationship. Downsizing and the elimination of jobs are necessary evils.

Simon Fraser University is a business: the University provides a service that students pay a fee to receive. As part of its business model, SFU seeks out the best and most skilled labor (i.e. course instructors and researchers) to elevate its status in the global community and to attract the best and brightest students. Part of this labor force is the coalition of teaching assistants, tutor markers, sessionals, and language and culture instructors who are hired to either buttress the work of permanent staff members, or to provide stop-gap options given a lack of qualified applicants. The work done by this group (of which I am a member) is vital. We grade your essays, exams, and assignments, run tutorials, assist in labs, provide extra (often unpaid and voluntary) tutoring, develop worksheets and practice exams, act as conduits between you and the course instructor, and conduct entire courses. The pool SFU draws from to fill these positions includes those graduate and undergraduate students who show exemplary academic capability and have the most teaching experience. Every SFU student has a horror story about a lethargic, overmatched or uninterested TA; of course our work is not flawless, but these positions are handed out with attention to the grades assigned by both course instructors and students at the end of each semester. As employees, we are held accountable for our performance, and our continued employment is contingent upon it. Accountability is necessary for a business to function optimally, but this has to be a two-way street. An employer must be accountable to their employees, necessitating the formation of unions to ensure the employee’s needs and rights are met and satisfied. However, a pervasive sense of entitlement held by either the labor union or the employer can preclude dedicated negotiations, erode goodwill, and poison the working relationship between both sides. This brings us to the Teaching and Support Staff Union’s (TSSU) and SFU’s current situation.

 Bargaining in bad faith?

The TSSU has been bargaining with Human Resources for the last two-and-a-half years to establish a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Due to limited movement on the part of SFU, the TSSU held a strike vote during the summer semester in which 90 per cent of the voting membership supported job action. This job action was then activated during the fall semester. Initial job action banned unpaid overtime by all TSSU members, but in an effort to exert further pressure on the employer, the TSSU served notice on Oct. 19 that grades on all assignments marked by members would be withheld from students and the university. This decision was made in response to perceived “bad faith” bargaining on the part of Human Resources. Derek Sahota, a representative of the TSSU, intimated that SFU’s negotiation team has shown little motivation to iron out an agreement: they have often tabled successive proposals that have attempted to claw back employee rights as outlined in previous proposals and CBAs, and have delayed the process several times. Mediation sessions have been regularly cancelled or not respected — with HR often sauntering in late and leaving early — and response times to proposals have been lethargic. When asked to comment on SFU’s attitude, Sahota was brutally honest and direct. “CUPE [Local 3338] has already filled a bargaining in bad faith case against SFU, but is still waiting for a hearing after over a month. Thus, the legal process is far too slow if our goal is a new collective agreement this semester,” he said. “I can’t speak for what SFU is thinking, but the best way to comprehend their position is in terms of monetary items. Every day they stall us is another day they don’t have to pay a cost of living increase.”  Currently, all bargaining has been indefinitely suspended, a result of an Oct. 22 meeting where the University rejected the TSSU’s revised package that had been presented on Oct. 15.

SFU’s 2009 Annual Financial Report showed enrollment increased by more than 17 per cent, surpassing government-funded enrollment. Furthermore, income from student fees, sales of goods and services, gifts, grants and contracts, and investment income all showed an increase over the year 2008 to 2009. This increase in net profits has financed growth at all the university’s campuses. Despite the increased funds, in response to annual wage increase proposals of three per cent, SFU countered with a proposed increase of 2.5 per cent over the next four years, despite rising tuition rates. This is not in lockstep with the current cost of living: a recent Graduate Student Society (GSS) survey tabs the average gross yearly income of graduate students in 2012 as $18,000 per year, while the corresponding number in 2000 was $20,000 per year. Meanwhile, B.C.’s Consumer Price Index has grown, meaning that the cost of living is significantly higher. This betrays an ideological bent in SFU’s mindset: the concept of sharing the wealth is perceived as ludicrous, even as overall earnings steadily trend upwards. Even as the employer makes no attempt to reinitiate negotiations, they have sought to dilute the impact of job action from behind the scenes: an email from the VP academic of SFU on Oct. 28 was leaked — and can be found on the TSSU’s bargaining website — that actively suggested that faculty members could mark assignments while increasing TA office hours to make up for these lost marking hours. The TSSU has clear guidelines in the contract that is given to all TAs for how much time they are required to put into a class, and this email was in clear violation of these contractual guidelines.

Often the public’s responses to job actions are motivated by political beliefs or passionate reactions. I have personally been asked by multiple students what the TSSU intends to prove by holding their grades hostage. The ultimate belief of students is that job actions and strikes are primarily centered on pay — a point of view that has a sympathetic slant towards the employer.

Let’s indulge this view momentarily: how is it unfair that a skilled work force demands a salary commensurate with its role and performance? Why is the worker demonized while the employer is allowed to arbitrarily dole out whatever pay they deem sufficient? The employer is not a benevolent benefactor; rather, the relationship is co-dependent and, as in any relationship, there has to be a spirit of sharing and willingness to commit to good faith negotiations. The workers are fully within their rights to agitate for an agreement that provides a fair wage in addition to job security and appropriate benefits, just as the employer is within their rights to negotiate for an agreement that most closely benefits their bottom line.

This is not to disagree with or dismiss the legitimate concerns of students. Job action is a scorched earth policy and a losing proposition for all three parties, which ensures that nobody comes out entirely happy. Most members of the TSSU are still students themselves and are sympathetic to the plight of those caught in the crossfire. Even though the current escalated job action is designed to ensure minimum harm to students, the need for exerting pressure on the employer is paramount for a swift resolution. Continued job action or potential escalation to a picket line during the exam period (which has neither been confirmed nor ruled out as a possibility by the TSSU) would be catastrophic and considerably affect students as well as public perception of SFU and the TSSU. When asked to address student concerns, Sahota was terse. “I think students should be primarily concerned about the future of the institution. This dispute will be resolved at some point and they will receive their grades, but the value of the degree that those grades lead to is strongly dependent on teachers at SFU,” he said. “Without fair treatment for qualified and experienced teachers, the educational system at SFU will suffer and we will slip even further down in university rankings.”

Necessity?

It would be easy to wax philosophical about how individuals have agitated for social change and revolution for centuries via unionized action, but the image of organized labor is disconnected from normal consumers, and has been for some time now. Discussions of unions conjure up images of self-absorbed pseudo-intellectuals who are fiercely guarded and protective of their own ahead of the public interest, often striking at a whim to achieve their objectives. The recently concluded teachers strike in Chicago served to further public opinion against labor, while the NFL’s referees lockout was intensely polarizing before a catastrophic disaster on Monday Night Football swayed public opinion against the owners. It would be wishful thinking to cast the conflict between the TSSU and SFU on the same scale, but both conflicts were resolved with significant acquiescence from both sides, and serve as an important model for the progression of our own negotiations. Relevant labor disputes between universities and local unions in Canada provide a closer perspective, with job actions running the gamut from violent and disruptive — like York in 2008 — to more peaceful and short-lived, like McMasters in 2009. When asked for a method of resolution, Sahota hypothesized that it is the constitution of SFU’s contract think-tank that is flawed. “If we had to say one common thread about resolving labour disputes at universities, it would be that they are best resolved when academics take the lead role in negotiations and only use Human Resources in a consultative manner,” he explained. “At SFU the opposite is true, Human Resources runs the show, and departments and academics are rarely, if ever, consulted.” When requested to respond to the TSSU’s allegations, Don MacLachlan, SFU’s director of Public Affairs and Media Relations, politely declined to comment publicly on affairs pertinent to negotiations: “We are certainly trying to minimize the impact on students of any job action,” he said. “As for the issues in the dispute, I have to say that while we hope for their successful resolution, we would not discuss issues except at the bargaining table itself.”

The right to job action should not be approached lightly or whimsically. The goal of a union is not to strike, but rather to maintain active and constructive negotiations. This is a stance we expect our employer to simultaneously adhere to. There is no such thing as an ideal contract, but one that both parties can claim victories within is the right jumping off point.

The rich classhole

By
EIC
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0


Unless you’re footing the bill for your entire lecture, shut up about your parents paying for a victory lap

By Alison Roach
Photos by Mark Burnham

It’s no small secret that post-secondary education is expensive. “Oh woe is me, I’m a starving university student,” is a pretty common refrain, and for good reason. We all agree that tuition fees are slowly sucking the life out of us, right? Right? Wrong.

Last week, in my easy science breadth class, we got our midterm marks. As everyone was perusing their grades and letting out guttural noises of victory or defeat, I heard from behind me: “Yo man, I failed! Guess I can just take this again next semester,” followed by various pats on the back, “Yeah mans,” and guffaws.

I slowly filled with an introverted rage. Does he even know how much retaking a course will cost? Does he not care? That’s not even taking into account the extra time he’ll have to spend on this. It was beyond comprehension.

Personally, when it comes to financing my degree, I’m on my own. So I work full-time during my summers at a job with a decent wage, which gets me through most of first semester. Part-time during the year helps to keep up with living expenses, and student loans cover the rest. I thought this wasn’t a rare case, but it was pretty clear that guffaw-guy isn’t under the same constraints. He’s probably not footing the bill.

Since he was so nonchalant about the dollars behind his bold declaration, I decided to go home and do the math for him. If the SFU website is to be believed, your average three-credit course will run you just over $500. Say guffaw-guy is unlucky, and he has a new prof and has to buy a new textbook, we’ll tack another $100. So his victory lap of the class will run him a neat $600, or just over 57 hours of work at minimum wage, which is likely more hours than he will even spend in lecture for this one class during the course of the semester.

I wondered if I was in a minority in finding guffaw-guy’s attitude outrageous. I know most people have some parental help with school fees, but how many? To what extent? I conducted a brief survey of my friends via mass text to get to the bottom of this, and saw a few definite trends emerging. Most who responded have some financial help from parents, but this did not cover everything. Education funds set up by parents are apparently prone to running out part-way through their education or only extending to cover certain things, leaving them to fend for the rest themselves. There was an overwhelming response that the first couple of years had been easy enough financially, but the next ones were much more difficult.

I also asked one of my friends who had to retake a course if she regretted it from a financial standpoint and her response was an enthusiastic yes: “Don’t even get me started! No one should have to pay for math. Taking it is bad enough.” Another friend has an education fund from her family that will see her all the way through, but emphasized that she knows how lucky she is to have it, and that it allows her more freedom than most students have.

My point is that if you see a guffaw-guy in your class, kindly punch him in the face. As far as I can tell, he is the minority, and he doesn’t know nor appreciate how good he’s got it. You could also go as far as to kindly inform him that his gravy train might eventually run out, but does he really deserve our kindness?

Do you really know how to use that gadget?

By
EIC
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0


Technology controls us if we don’t know how to use it

By April Alayon
Photos by Ben Buckley

Working in an electronic retail store made me despise technology. I don’t carry the latest phone, nor do I have a badass computer set up, because I’ve witnessed first-hand how people can get attached to technology, turning into crazy maniacs obsessing over gadgets. Like any other commodity, we are deceived to think we need these portable technologies, that they will improve our lives.

It is ironic that people would spend hundreds of dollars on technology to keep their social ties closer, but achieve the opposite. This could be part of the reason why people often say that it is hard to meet and make friends in an urban setting like Vancouver. Maybe if people stopped staring at their phones, and acknowledged the person next to them on the train, we could be listed as the friendliest city in the world. But no, instead we prefer to disconnect and isolate ourselves with those little mp3 players, and to display our $200 branded headphones to impress strangers we’ll never speak to.

It boggles my mind whenever I see people line-up for hours outside local electronic retail stores to get a phone that doesn’t even fit your pocket. I understand that the newest tablet computer would get you lots of envious looks from your friends or classmates, but that can only last for a few weeks before a superior one comes out. This will not buy you friends; rather, it will attract thieves. Working long hours at your job to afford that newest phone every month is a bad investment if all you do with that eight-megapixel camera is take pictures of your lunch. Cell phones have generally lost their main purpose: to communicate with people because you have something important or urgent to say. Now, they’re just something we carry around for show.

Does it actually increase our productivity? Not really. There are a bunch of productivity applications for these fancy gadgets so that they can perform tasks in an efficient manner. But installing these applications does not stop you from getting sucked into watching countless hours of Youtube videos, or constantly Facebook-stalking that person from your class. This is why I prefer using pen and paper to take notes in class. Bringing a laptop is like paying $800 so you can surf the Internet or scroll down Pinterest somewhere besides your couch. Faster, better and newer gadgets do not guarantee efficiency if you can’t discipline yourself around technology.

Our society’s obsession with technological advancements is slowly shaping detached relationships between its members. I am not saying that we should reject new technologies, but that technology is changing the way we interact socially. It makes us forget how to interact with respect and value what is truly important. It has turned our society into an insensitive bunch, obsessed with conspicuous consumption, instead of making us better citizens.

Get cracking with cancer fighting eggs

By
EIC
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0

Genetically modified chicken eggs may cure some cancers in the near future

By Kristina Charania
Photos by Kjetil Ree

In every child’s life, there is at least one awful creature at the petting zoo that gives you absolute hell. So, fine — you don’t have to excuse the cow that stepped on your little toe and broke it. He was obviously a total dick, anyway.

However, the chicken that pooped on your favourite bright pink gumboots needs an apology text message. Suck it up and do it, buttercup, because the likelihood that the chicken’s badass offspring will save your cancer-riddled behind one day is much higher than you’d imagine.

At the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Dr. Helen Sang’s designer hens have been clucking away for nearly five years — they produce potent cancer-fighting drugs in their eggs.

The wonderful thing about this standout genetic engineering is the simple science behind it. Equine infectious anaemia lentivirus — a bug that normally infiltrates and modifies the DNA sequences of a horse — acts as a vessel that implants human genes into unhatched chicken embryos. The result of this modification is neither a human, Shetland pony, cyborg, nor any combination of the above. Instead, the new DNA replaces the gene that codes for the production of ovalbumin, a protein constituting 54 per cent of an egg white. The modified chicken will then produce a selected drug in place of ovalbumin in subsequent eggs.

Consequentially labelling Dr. Sang as a the biotech world’s bad news bear would be a horrible error. Her innovative “pharming” — the cool kids’ term for pharmaceutical farming — has produced the miR24 antibody that may treat melanoma, the antiviral human interferon b-1a, and the beta interferon that treats multiple sclerosis. Chicken pharming is nothing short of economical, either. The average egg contains roughly 33 grams of egg white, and genetically modified chickens produce anywhere from 15 to 50 micrograms of drug per millilitre of egg white. You don’t need to be a math whiz to know that’s a whole lot of drugs. Because these hens lay approximately 300 eggs per year, the potential mass-generation of these drugs could one day be available at a fraction of the cost that they are currently available for.

Besides the high drug yield, the modifications are harmless to chickens, too: the expression of the added human genes only changes the protein composition of the egg white. So, PETA, put your little hand down; it’s okay.

Here’s the problem, though: you can’t exactly walk down aisle two at London Drugs and pick up a can of melanoma yolk potion for five bucks — but with the quickly advancing technology of the 21st century, drug-infused foods could quickly build a niche into our future diets. As a hypothetical example, the ailment-curing acetaminophen found in your Tylenol could one day be a medicinal ingredient in those yam fries you munch on at lunch. Distinguishing between our Gucci designer eggs and our imaginary, aforementioned Tylenol yam is crucial: the eggs are a mere vessel for drug fabrication, and a Tylenol yam would contain active medical ingredients intended for direct human consumption. In the latter case, little purification would likely occur during the production of these medicinal foods. Depending on the by-products and the interaction of the drug with its environment, this could pose some serious dangers and side effects for the consumer. So, before you eat anything at all, make sure these foods are at least FDA approved and have undergone clinical trials over a long period of time.

Do your research, keep reading, and stay informed, kids. You know the drill: with powerful technology comes great responsibility to stay informed.

Project Bookmark Canada marks first literary locations west of Ontario

By
EIC
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0

Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony is commemorated with dual-language plaque in Chinatown.

By Monica Miller
Photos by Monica Miller

It is probably every young Harry Potter fan’s dream to go to London and see Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross Station, the filming locations for Gringotts Bank, or the castle that inspired Hogwarts. In major cities across the world, readers delight in such literary landmarks, but few are noted on-site. That’s where author Miranda Hill got the idea for Project Bookmark.

“Our goal is to put text from stories and poems in the exact physical location where literary scenes take place,” explains Hill, founder and executive director of the national charity Project Bookmark Canada.

The first bookmark was placed in 2009 in Toronto from Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. Earlier this year they placed their first bookmark outside of Ontario, plaque #11 in Woody Point, Newfoundland, and in October, Project Bookmark reached Western Canada with bookmark #12. On Oct. 15, 2012, two bookmarks were unveiled side-by-side in Vancouver’s Chinatown, with a passage from Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony. On the left, the passage is written in Mandarin, and on the right, in English; this is Project Bookmark’s first dual-language plaque.

[pullquote]On the left, the passage is written in Mandarin, and on the right, in English; this is Project Bookmark’s first dual-language plaque.[/pullquote]

The Jade Peony was Wayson Choy’s first novel, and has received many accolades since being published in 1995 by Douglas & McIntyre. From the perspective of three young children, each taking turns to narrate the novel, we discover Vancouver’s Chinatown as it was in the 30s and 40s, a difficult time to be a Chinese immigrant. The novel chronicles life, death, sex, love, hate, from a variety of viewpoints, mixing reality and fantasy, fact and fiction.

The evening before the plaque unveiling, several organizations banded together to hold a fundraising tribute dinner for Wayson Choy. Organized in three short weeks through the joint effort of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop, Historic Joy Kogawa House Society, the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society, explorASIAN, and Gung Haggis Fat Choy, the evening featured dinner, speakers, multimedia, and a prize draw. The money raised went to Project Bookmark Canada, to fund the plaques since they are poster-sized ceramic installations cemented into the ground where the literary scene takes place, are not only expensive to produce, but doubly so for the dual-language Vancouver bookmark.

At the dinner and during the unveiling the day after, Choy expressed how humbled and honoured he was to have all these people supporting him and the literary arts in Canada.

“Go buy the book,” he joked, “you don’t even have to read it.” However, we know that many Canadians and Vancouverites already have, as The Jade Peony won the 1996 City of Vancouver Book Award, was the inaugural selection for the Vancouver Public Library’s One Book One Vancouver, and one of the contenders for CBC Canada Reads 2010.

On the corner of Pender and Gore, during the unveiling for The Jade Peony’s bookmark, Hill noted how she runs the organization out of their family attic, but when the planning for the Vancouver bookmark began, she felt like she had a huge team behind her. Hal Wake from the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival, and Anna Ling Kaye from PRISM international and the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop were two of her biggest supporters. Kaye read The Jade Peony passage in Mandarin and honoured author Wayson Choy read the passage in English.

Maybe, as Hill hopes, sosmeone will stumble upon one of the dozen literary bookmarks placed so far and feel compelled to seek out the book.

5 new artists you should be listening to

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By Max Hill

Death Grips

Genre: Experimental, hip-hop | Tracks: “Hacker”, “Get Got”, “Deep Web”

It seems like Death Grips have been everywhere in 2012: they released their debut studio album The Money Store earlier this year to critical acclaim and, more recently, their sophomore effort No Love Deep Web was leaked months earlier than anticipated after a much-publicized falling out with their record label (be warned: the album artwork is very NSFW). Despite their divisive reputation, Death Grips’ music is what ultimately commands the most attention: combining hardcore hip-hop with elements of noise rock and electronic music, the band’s sound is immediate, powerful and hard to ignore. It’s not for everyone — many might be turned off by front man MC Ride’s expressive vocals and abstract lyrics — but for those who have yet to give Death Grips a try, this elusive trio is making music that sounds like nothing else around.

Cloud Nothings

Genre: Indie rock, punk | Tracks: “Stay Useless”, “Should Have”, “Fall In”

Cloud Nothings aren’t, strictly speaking, new on the scene. The Cleveland, Ohio quartet have been making music since 2009, when the band consisted only of lead vocalist and guitarist Dylan Baldi recording instrumental tracks in his parent’s basement. However, this year the band is beginning to find a wider audience: having teamed up with Steve Albini, the famed producer behind such seminal albums as Nirvana’s In Utero and Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, Cloud Nothings shifted from the lo-fi power-pop of their first two albums to a rougher, harsher sound, borrowing from genres as diverse as post-hardcore, emo and Pixies-style college rock. Attack on Memory is still one of my top albums of 2012. It’s a fantastic and addictive LP that portrays a band evolving into its own sound without the typical growing pains.

Kishi Bashi

Genre: Indie pop, electronic | Tracks: “Bright Whites”, “Manchester”, “Beat the Bright Out”

Kaoru Ishibashi has been in the music industry for years — he’s toured with of Montreal and Regina Spektor, and fronted Brooklyn synth rock outfit Jupiter One since 2003 — but he’s only been recording solo work under the pseudonym Kishi Bashi since 2011. When spinning his debut LP 151a, though, it’s hard to believe his project is so new — Ishibashi’s perfectly crafted psychedelic pop suggests an artist with at least a few albums under his belt. Spanning nine tracks written primarily for violin, 151a is a compulsively listenable record which proudly wears its influences on its sleeve (Andrew Bird, Owen Pallett and Animal Collective among them) while still managing to sound fresh and new. Peppered with occasional Japanese and exuberant melodies fully deserving of shower-sung renditions, Kaoru Ishibashi’s music is both full of childlike wonder and world-weary wisdom: although his songs often deal with the darker side of life, his optimism always shines though.

Kendrick Lamar

Genre: West Coast hip-hop | Tracks: “Good Kid”, “Backseat Freestyle”, “Real”

Coasting off of the popularity of his digital mix tape Section.80, Compton native and Dr. Dre understudy Kendrick Lamar has made big splashes with his most recent album, good kid, m.A.A.d city. A concept album about Kendrick’s adolescence and struggles with gang violence and substance abuse, GKMC is a deeply personal account of both Lamar’s own life experience and one that many young men from impoverished areas like Compton share. Lamar’s talents as a rapper have also improved over time: his talent for affecting his voice to portray different characters and expressing complicated emotion under the guise of typical hyperbolic boasts set Lamar apart in what’s become a very competitive time for up-and-coming rappers. Though hardcore hip-hop nerds might frown at GKMC’s more radio-friendly tracks, Lamar’s flow, artistry and perseverance have made him one of the most essential new rappers on the scene.

First Aid Kit

Genre: Folk | Tracks: “Emmylou”, “The Lion’s Roar”, “Blue”

Joanna and Klara Soderberg, Swedish sisters and songstresses better known as First Aid Kit, are unlike some of the other artists on this list: artists like Death Grips and Kishi Bashi strive to invent new ways to express themselves musically, while First Aid Kit takes a tried and true formula and does it better than nearly all of their contemporaries. The Lion’s Roar, their latest effort, is carried by the sister’s close-knit and hauntingly beautiful vocal melodies, as folky guitars and a capable but somewhat secondary backing band pluck away in the background. Critics have compared the Soderbergs to famous folkies and singer-songwriters, and I think of them as being in the same category as Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine and Joanna Newsom: artists whose soft harmonies and calming instrumentation make them extremely listenable while letting the vocals, and thereby the message, take the lead.

The SFU authors spotlight

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By Monica Miller

Sarah Leavitt is a graduate of SFU’s Writer’s Studio (2002) and a published author in a variety of genres including comics, fiction and non-fiction. While doing her MFA for Creative Writing at UBC, Leavitt completed her first version of Tangles, a graphic memoir about her mother dying of Alzheimer’s.

“When my mother got Alzheimer’s disease, I knew I had to record what was happening to her and to our family,” Leavitt explains in the book’s introduction. Leavitt’s mother had passed away in the fall of 2004, and the book took six years to complete.

The final narrative was Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me, published by Freehand Books in 2010. It illustrated the powerful and emotional true story of Midge Leavitt’s battle with Alzheimer’s and the effect on their family, specifically Sarah herself. Tangles is a raw narrative — vivid, unforgiving, honest, humiliating, and yet compassionate, moving, and at times humorous.

Tangles was a finalist for the 2010 Writers’ Trust of Canada Non-fiction Prize (the first graphic narrative to be a finalist in the category), was shortlisted for the 2011 B.C. Book Prizes’ Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, and a number of other accolades.

Recently, Sarah Leavitt participated in Northwords, a cross-platform project spearheaded by Shelagh Rogers. Rogers invited five authors to join her for a week of “roughing it” in the Torngat Mountains National Park in Labrador, to “explore how experiences on the land could be transformed into the geography of the imagination.” The writing and experiences of the authors, including Leavitt, has been published in an e-book, as well as on an interactive website and documentary film.

 

 Gurjinder Basran graduated from SFU’s Writer’s Studio in 2006. Her first novel was published in 2010 with Mother Tongue Publishing, after winning the Search For the Great B.C. Novel contest. Everything Was Good-bye began as a journaling project with Basran’s sisters and later morphed into a novel during the Writer’s Studio. The novel focuses on a young Indo-Canadian woman named Meena growing up in the Lower Mainland, struggling with her independence in a traditional Punjabi home.

Basran won the 2011 B.C. Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and in an interview noted that The Writer’s Studio was incredibly influential. “Being in a space where you can believe that you’re a writer and you’re not just playing at it — it makes it very real. It makes you take yourself seriously.”

In an effort to gain more international notice, Everything Was Good-bye was picked up by Penguin Group for a second print run in March of this year, and will be published in the U.S. by Pintail Books on Dec. 31, 2012. Currently, Basran is working on her second novel, despite readers wanting to hear more of Meena’s story.

Basran, along with David Chariandy and Caroline Adderson (both of whom are instructors at SFU) are the three judges for the next Great B.C. Novel contest. Gurjinder Basran’s photograph was also included in the recently published 111 West Coast Literary Portraits from Mother Tongue Publishing.

Eco-Fashion Week paves the way for ethical shopping

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The fifth eco-conscious fashion show teaches us the ethics involved in clothing choice.

By Caroline Brown
Photos by Peter Jensen

Contrary to what most may think, Eco-Fashion Week (EFW) is a lot more than just a bunch of hippies getting together and modeling hemp sacks. In fact, it is a whole lot more than even I expected. EFW held its fifth presentation on Oct. 17–19. Founder Myriam Laroche launched EFW in hopes to gain momentum in a movement that all consumers should become aware of: the principles of sustainable shopping practices,  fabric awareness, and worker’s rights. This local event is more than just a promotion of eco-friendly designers, it is a group of people who are passionate about spreading awareness of the dangers of an industry that profits over $300 billion per year. I’ve learned that a cotton t-shirt is in fact a water guzzling garment that wastes over 2,700 liters of water per shirt. With access to fresh water on a serious decline, that is a depressing figure to get your head around.

For spring/summer 2013, EFW showcased designs from Vancouver, Quebec, and Value Village. It also held seminars, or “smart talks,” which were categorized into four areas of concern: textiles and manufacturing, labour and manufacturing, industry trends, and consumer behaviour and awareness. EFW is not just another fashion week that romanticizes shopping addictions, but has its philosophy rooted in ecological and personal concerns.

Nicole Bridger, a pioneer in the usage of sustainable fashion practices in Vancouver, opened the fashion show. It was unconventional, with dancers dressed in her designs alongside the models on stage. The clothing was intrinsically true to Nicole Bridger’s style: comfortable fabrics with easy and flowy silhouettes. Bridger claimed her collection was inspired by a Hindu goddess named Kali, who is “ruthless against ignorance, and is all about death to those things that no longer serve your higher purpose.” This is a philosophy that EFW itself could promote, because the show is not just about spreading awareness about our choices, but promoting a change in North America’s overconsumption lifestyle. Bridger’s fabric choices are sustainable, consisting of organic cotton, wool, tencel and silk; her clothing is also manufactured ethically, with 90 per cent produced in Vancouver, and the other portion produced in a fair trade factory in Peru and a GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified factory in India.

Value Village challenged Kim Cathers, another local designer, to make a collection entirely from 68 pounds of discarded clothing. This is the average amount of clothing that people throw away annually. Cathers designed her entire collection in five weeks, the theme becoming apparent half way through the process: loads of denim and a coherent colour palette began to reflect a country-western attitude. The strongest pieces in her collection were white lace skirts that draped in the front and were made from old tablecloths. The show demonstrated that the clothing that we get rid of each year could in fact create an entirely new wardrobe, which poignantly suggested how wasteful our society has become.

On Thursday evening, four Quebecois designers showed their collections as well as two other designers from Vancouver. While the first three designers from Quebec (Myco Anna, Respeecterre, and Voyou) had questionable taste and target markets — it seemed as though their collections were made for tweens — the last presenter, atelier b., showed a cohesive collection with humorously themed accessories. The collection had a country-music festival theme with neutral tones of grey, navy and creme, with a hint of rust and yellow. Accenting the wide range of outfits were rain boots or flat ankle tie-up boots and antique iron necklaces, which added a unique twist.

While attending fashion shows is a great way to become educated on new designers, the “smart talks” proved to be highly educational as well.  For example, I learned that sustainable bamboo fabric is a myth and does not in fact help decrease stress on our environment. During these smart talks, Mary Hanlon spoke on behalf of Social Alteration, a non-profit organization that provides free online education on the fashion industry, while spreading awareness of the unethical work environments of factories in developing countries. Social Fabric, a local company, reduces textile waste in our community by recycling donated clothing and fabric and selling it at a very low price of $2/yard.

One of the most innovative companies to talk at EFW was SustainU. While other “smart talks” mainly discussed the issues and problems within the clothing industry, SustainU found an innovative solution to solve the cotton t-shirt dilemma: the company produces t-shirts made from recycled polyester (PET), which is found in our plastic bottles and polyester scraps.

EFW is a new venture in Vancouver, with a morally binding desire to change an industry that causes much harm to our environment by educating consumers and designers alike. Hopefully this event will start a movement in Canada and across the world, and help pioneer the eco-friendly fashion movement.

SFU teams up with i2P to run the Kalahari

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Dr. Georges Agnes is leading eight students through the desert to explore the role of water

By Alison Roach
Photos by PAMR

Dr. Georges Agnes, a SFU chemistry professor and associate dean of the Faculty of Science, is currently running across the Kalahari Desert in Botswana along with eight students to explore the role of water there. The run began Oct. 30 and is expected to end on Nov. 8. Agnes developed the Kalahari trek’s academic component.

The expedition is part of the impossible2Possible (i2P) World Expedition Series. i2P is a non-profit organization based out of California that sponsors youth trips with academic themes. These have included journeys to Tunisia, Baffin Island, and Bolivia last May, which Agnes was also involved in. SFU has collaborated with SFU to create an educational curriculum of the trip. This year, the 17–21-year-old participants will cross 400 kilometres of desert on the expedition. The eight participants prepared for several weeks before the program began to narrow down their own personal research interests, as well as ensure they were physically ready for the run.

Unfortunately, Agnes was not available for comment, since he had already made his way to Botswana in preparation for the run, but he did say in an interview with SFU’s Public Affairs and Media Relations that “foundational scientific principles are at the core of the i2P expedition’s academic themes . . . The i2P academic program allows its youth ambassadors to identify and learn what they are interested in as it relates to the Kalahari Desert.” The students participating in the run are mainly from North America and range from high school students to recent university graduates.

The trek is centred around the study of water availability and use in the desert, as well as its effect on biodiversity and human development. The participants have chosen specifically to study water purification, human rights issues, animals, and economic and biodiversity issues related to water in the Kalahari Desert. While Agnes is to teach the experiential learning modules, Jay Solman — an SFU ombudsperson who volunteers with the i2p organization — is also part of the core educational team. Solman is to guide the youth ambassadors to produce online content and interactions.

Part of the program is global and informational, with the i2P youth ambassadors maintaining video and photo journals, live video conferencing, Facebook, and Twitter throughout their journey to keep in contact with students and classrooms around the world who are interested in following along. Part of the goal of the program is to provide students and teachers around the globe with informative and useful educational resources and material.

The Peak spoke with Diane Mar-Nicolle, the communication officer for the Dean of Science Office at SFU, who said, “This is a combination of experiential learning that reaches a global audience, and it is just one way that the Faculty of Science is a world leader in innovative science outreach and teaching.”

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024